194: PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



Again, down to the present day epilepsy is regarded by 

 many as due to possession by a devil; and Roman Catholics 

 have a form of exorcism to be gone through by a priest to 

 cure maladies thus supernaturally caused. Belief in the de 

 moniacal origin of some diseases is indeed a belief neces 

 sarily accepted by consistent members of the Christian 

 Church; since it is the belief taught to them in the New 

 Testament a belief, moreover, which survives the so-called 

 highest culture. When, for example, we see a late Prime 

 Minister, deeply imbued with the University spirit, pub 

 licly defending the story that certain expelled devils en 

 tered into swine, we are clearly shown that the theory of the 

 demoniacal origin of some disorders is quite consistent with 

 the current creed. And we are shown how, consequently, 

 there yet remains a place for priestly action in medical treat 

 ment. 



Let me add a more remarkable mode in which the primi 

 tive theory has persisted. The notion that the demon who 

 was causing a disease must be driven out, continued, until 

 recent times, to give a character to medical practice; and 

 even now influences the conceptions which many people 

 form of medicines. The primitive medicine-man, thinking 

 to make the body an intolerable habitat for the demon, ex 

 posed his patient to this or that kind of alarming, painful 

 or disgusting treatment. He made before him dreadful 

 noises and fearful grimaces, or subjected him to an almost 

 unbearable heat, or produced under his noise atrocious 

 stenches, or made him swallow the most abominable sub 

 stances he could think of. As we saw r in the case cited in 

 132, from Eccle&iasticus, the idea, even among the semi- 

 civilized Hebrews, long remained of this nature. Now there 

 is abundant proof that, not only during mediaeval days but 

 in far more recent days, the efficiency of medicines was 

 associated in thought with their disgustingness : the more 

 repulsive they were the more effectual. Hence Montaigne s 

 ridicule of the monstrous compounds used by doctors in his 



